Life Is a Series of Waiting Rooms We Enter and Exit
Reentry after 72-hours feels like 100 years
When I awoke in the hospital, Dana was nowhere to be seen or heard of.
I assumed she got cold feet when the cops and ambulance arrived.
Either way, it seems the pizza man likely made the call after seeing the state of disarray on his property. It’s been nearly 72 hours and arrangements were made for my mother and Steven, someone who I believed in who never believed in anyone but himself, to come to Brooklyn and harvest me from the fields of discourse I had sewn. This crop had little yield at such high cost of labor and currency.
I waited for someone to come detach me from this machinery to which my life blood has been connected to. It was probably monitored and recorded in some database for analysis on which types of patients are able to helped and which are just there for what they call “harm reduction”.
At last, somebody came. They brought me my shoes to put on but then demanded I get in a wheelchair. I found this ironic but they told me it was policy.
The moment I was released I immediately walked down the street to take stock of what resources surrounded me. I noticed a Walgreens not even two minutes walking distance away from the hospital. This was no doubt strategically planted there for just such an occasion. I walked in a beeline to the back of the store over to the pharmacy.
“Package of half-cc long tips, please,” I asked without hesitation.
$2.94. Arguably the best money ever spent.
Honestly, I don’t know how I even had a single dollar left after this ordeal.
After leaving the Walgreens without incident, I noticed a small Mexican restaurant across the street. I entered as if I had somewhere to go, like someone was waiting for me at a table and I was just going through to find them. I was really after the bathroom. Since my last experience in a public restroom outside of the monitoring of healthcare professionals had gone so great, I figured I would give it another go.
While I was in the hospital for the last three days, I had stashed the rest of my dope somewhere I need not mention. The important thing is that I still had it. I have to hand it to the guy, although we traveled more than four hours looking for him and another three staking him out, he actually did give me a pretty good deal for my wad of $80.
This all just meant that I had a shot left over.
Just one good shot.
I could’ve saved a little bit. I could’ve pinched some aside, but I dumped that motherfucker out like it was the last time.
Secretly, each person who lives this way wishes each time will be the one. This time will be the one that tucks you in. This time will be the God-shot. The sickly-sweet fever dream we all wish for.
Soon after, Steven pulled up with my mom in some ancient Buick or Oldsmobile or something that belonged to his sugar daddy.
I distinctly remember the first question from my Mom who was riding shot gun.
After a long silence she said, “So are you gonna hook me up?” Almost seeming annoyed that I made her ask.
I knew it was coming but I was slow to answer anyway. I managed to spit out the dreaded, “There’s nothing.”
The anger, the frustration, and the disappointment were palpable in the air. I have failed this mission as far as they were concerned. It will be another three hours or more before I reached home in mostly silence combined with the distant chatter of radio stations fading in and out as we made our way back to Connecticut.
I knew everybody was pissed off. I knew that Dana would be absent for coming weeks. I knew that I convinced my own mother to give me all the money she had because I was going to find a way to make us feel better. More than anything, I knew I had failed.
Even so, there was something we all knew. It was the name of the game, the golden rule we lived by. There weren’t any rules.
I cracked the window and lit one of my few remaining cigarettes and started thinking about how I knew it was going to be payday for Rachel tomorrow. Rachel is a good prospect. By then José will be good again and I won’t have to go back to New York the next day.
I drifted off feeling like exhaustion had just vomited apathy into my lap. I leaned into the glass and tossed the filter out the window. If I was capable of emotion, perhaps I would feel frustration that would cause me to wish I had payed closer attention to the little blue companions I had swallowed on the train.
I can tell you with certainty: what I did not feel was guilt.
We all knew the stakes. We played anyway. No backup. No stop-loss. No insurance.
We all played and some lost.
If it wasn’t my money it wasn’t my problem. Even if it had been, it would have been all the same. It’s just an occupational and recreational hazard.
I accepted the tension and dismissed it as I slid to my favorite spot in the middle of the back seat to watch out the windshield.
The only thing I am sorry for is having no romance to offer you.
Only the mediocrity of my life.
Read part 1 here:
Read part 2 here:
Read part 3 here:
Mi Sun Chang is an Automotive Locksmith who also happens to write memoirs about her depraved past. It helps put her depraved present into perspective. She lives in Rhode Island with her ivory mystery snail (girlfriend) and two beloved cats.
